Last Saturday just kept getting better and better for Detroit Country Day senior Quinn Norlander.
The morning at Waterford Kettering High School began with her teaming up with Jill Heller, Allie Schwartz and Lauren Clark to come second place in the 200-yard medley relay, the first event at the Oakland County Girls Swim Championship. The quartet was just three-hundredths of a second away from beating Marian for first.
She then had some time to rest before the 100 freestyle, one of the two events that she came in as the defending champion in, and Norlander delivered again. She beat out Mercy’s Campbell Shore and Rochester’s Taylor Robinson, taking first with a time of 52.13 seconds, an improvement over last fall’s winning mark of 52.34.
“Yeah, it’s a pretty good time,” Norlander said immediately following that race. “I think I went maybe two-tenths faster than last year, so I’m not super happy with it but not the worst … (The relay) was great. We just got touched out, so it was a super close race, so I was really proud of our team.”
The best was yet to come.
Following a sixth-place finish in the Yellowjackets’ 200 free relay, Norlander got right back in the pool for the 100 backstroke event and made history.
When she won the backstroke in a time of 55.11 as a junior at last year’s county meet, Norlander was just seven-hundredths away from the record set in 2017 by Mercy’s Katie Minnich, a three-time D1 state champion in the event who went on to swim at University of Michigan.
Country Day senior Quinn Norlander shows off one of her two first-place medals won at last Saturday’s county swim meet. (BRYAN EVERSON – MediaNews Group, file)
In Waterford, she shattered that historical mark by winning with a time of 54.90, almost three full seconds faster than the next-closest competitor.
“It feels great,” Norlander said. “I really wanted to get that record last year, so I’m happy I was able to get it done. I’ve definitely been working on my underwater, so that’s a big factor that played into it, and just working hard in practice and having the back-end speed to finish it out.”
Ranked the No. 8 senior in the state by SwimRadar, Norlander is committed to Penn. “I’m super excited (for it),” she said. “On my visit, all the girls, they were so welcoming and I felt like I could definitely see myself there, and Coach Mike (Schnur) is the best. He’s super funny. It was definitely an easy decision for me after I visited.”
Until then, there’s still ambitions for her to fulfill. After taking third in the IM and backstroke as a sophomore at the D3 finals, Norlander came runner-up in both the 100 free and backstroke during the finals in Holland in 2025. And with the entirety of that medley relay team returning, too — Country Day also took second at state in that race — there’s possibilities abound to stand atop the podium and improve upon the Yellowjackets’ seventh-place finish when they compete at Oakland University next month.
Individually, her best competition in the 100 back will be there and be familiar. Holland Christian’s Camryn Siegers set a D3 record (53.37) when she beat out Norlander at the 2025 state meet, while Cranbrook-Kingswood’s Elle Brooks, who came fifth in Holland and second Saturday in Waterford, now has the third-best time of any D3 swimmer this fall behind Norlander and Siegers.
Siegers, Marian’s Catherine Howe and Cranbrook’s Angela Jiang should be some of Norlander’s biggest challengers in the 100 free at OU.
“Definitely a top-3 finish in the relay again, and maybe some wins in my individual events,” Norlander said of the goals for this year’s finals. “We’re definitely a small team, but we really are mighty. We work really hard in the pool and we’re ready to come back this year and really get it done.”
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